Clarke desperate to fend off T20 axe

Australia Twenty20 captain Michael Clarke concedes he faces being dropped if he does not start pulling his weight in cricket's shortest format.

Clarke has flourished in the Test and one-day arena but continues to struggle in Twenty20, averaging just 21.45 with the bat over 33 international appearances.

The 29-year-old will look to turn that record around in Sunday's Twenty20 clash with Sri Lanka at the WACA ground in Perth and he admits he can no longer rely on his standing in the other forms of the game to hold his Twenty20 position.

"I think it's exactly the same as every other player now to be honest," Clarke said.

"You need to perform as well as you possibly can and if you're not performing well enough, well then I'd imagine they'd drop me like any other player.

"Fortunately I'm still in the team and hopefully I can get out there tomorrow and score some runs."

Clarke, who averages 48.91 in Tests and 43.90 in the 50-over game, believes it is just a matter of time before he adapted.

"I continually change my training to try to adapt to the shorter form of the game," he said.

"I've got to score runs individually ... and take wickets and field well.

"That's two other areas of my game that play a big part in Twenty20 cricket as well.

"I think my game has been able to adapt to Test cricket, to one-day international cricket and I do believe it can adapt to Twenty20 cricket.

"A couple of times I've played pretty well in Twenty20, I made 60-odd against New Zealand and then my last innings against Pakistan in England I thought I played pretty well (with a score of 30).

"I think I just probably need to go on and turn one of those 30s into a big score.

"I don't think I'll change my mind-set or the way I play, it's just about being able to adapt to a shorter form."

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara says his troops are eager to end their Australian hoodoo during their tour, which takes in one Twenty20 and three 50-over fixtures.

Sri Lanka is yet to win a one-day series in Australia, with two second-placed finishes in nine triangular fixtures the best result.

"Any team in their own backyard is very hard to beat," Sangakkara said.

"They (Australia) take a lot of pride in being able to beat teams that come to Australia, so they'll be looking to come hard at us and steamroll us from the start, from the first game onwards.

"For us (the hardest places to play) are probably India and Australia, where we have (yet) to really come in and convincingly win a series or games.

"Every time we come here we look forward to that challenge.

"Nothing comes easy here in Australia.

"The conditions are great to play cricket in but the Aussie team just seems to be that much tougher playing at home."